Aviation Color Primers - No.1: US Export Colors of WWII

This interesting title was just re-released by Meteor recently. If you haven't seen this before, take a closer look! The author focuses on the colors applied to US-manufactured aircraft that were exported prior to the US entry into WW2 and through the lend-lease program.

If you're not interested in yet another opinion on historical colors then this is definitely the title for you. While some authors have based their research on other peoples research and/or a handful of restored museum examples, this author is none other than Dana Bell, one of the historians of the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum! He has access to resources we can only dream about!

Dana has compiled and presented an interested history trail of the standards and applications used by aircraft manufacturers prior to shipping their aircraft overseas. What's also important is that many US squadrons operated these same aircraft painted to non-US standards early in the war, prior to receiving the latest aircraft off the production lines.

The author runs through the spectrum (pun intended) color by color to explain the source and/or history of the confusion in development and use of each color. At the end of the title, the author summarizes each 'standard' color and its application on export aircraft.

This title is recommended to all WW2 aircraft modelers!

My sincere thanks to Meteor Productions for this review sample!